Santo Tomás: an institutional strategy with social innovation at its core
One of Chile's largest higher education networks realigned its strategic plan around social innovation as its differentiating value: 104 educators and 80 senior leaders trained, collaborative spaces in 4 regions and its own diploma programme.
Santo Tomás is one of the largest higher education networks in Chile: a university, a professional institute and a technical training centre, with campuses across the whole country. When it decided to make innovation with social, ecological and economic impact the differentiating value of its strategy, the question was not one of conviction but of method: how do you install that in an institution of that scale?
We worked together through a three-stage sequence.
First, the strategy
In 2020 we supported the reformulation of the Institutional Strategic Plan, aligning it around social innovation. Not an annex or an isolated programme: the institution’s central plan. On that foundation we co-designed an in-house social innovation model, a system for articulating with the external ecosystem, and an evaluation model to monitor the objectives.
Then, the people
In 2021 the model became a training and certification pilot: 104 professors took part in the Teaching Update Course on social innovation, and 80 senior leaders from different campuses went through the Social Innovation in Higher Education course. Real transformation happens in educators and in those who lead, not in documents.
And then, the spaces
We co-designed collaborative workspaces in four regions of Chile - Concepción, Talca, Santiago and Antofagasta - so that social innovation would have a physical home on campus, not just a budget line. The third stage added the design of a 200-hour Social Innovation Diploma, so the institution itself could certify these capabilities inward and towards its community.
What this case demonstrates
A transformation alliance is not a metaphor: it is strategy, training and spaces, in that order, sustained over years. The collaboration with Santo Tomás extended across more than six years of continuous work.
We believe in educational institutions capable of adapting, evolving and leading change. Santo Tomás did it at national scale.
More detail on the project at 2811global.com. Is your institution rethinking its strategy? Let’s talk.